True Grit (2010) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON TV A tough U.S. Marshal helps a stubborn teenager track down her father's murderer. Directors: a list of 33 titles created 03 Feb 2011 a list of 43 images created 19 Feb 2011 a list of 47 titles created 28 Sep 2013 a list of 29 titles created 21 Apr 2015 a list of 26 titles created 11 Jul 2015 Search for " True Grit " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 10 Oscars. Another 37 wins & 148 nominations.

See more awards » Videos In the deep south during the 1930s, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it. Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out the rancher. Director: James Mangold When a childless couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher, watches his life unravel over multiple sudden incidents. Though seeking meaning and answers amidst his turmoils, he seems to keep sinking.

Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Lennick A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis Tom Regan, an advisor to a Prohibition-era crime boss, tries to keep the peace between warring mobs but gets caught in divided loyalties. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, John Turturro "The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it.

Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande. Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin A naive business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam. Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Stars: Tim Robbins, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh Edit Storyline Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. marshal she can find, a man with "true grit," Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn.

Mattie insists on accompanying Cogburn, whose drinking, sloth, and generally reprobate character do not augment her faith in him. Against his wishes, she joins him in his trek into the Indian Nations in search of Chaney. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who wants Chaney for his own purposes. The unlikely trio find danger and surprises on the journey, and each has his or her "grit" tested. Written by Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net> Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of western violence including disturbing images | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 22 December 2010 (USA) See more » Also Known As: Temple de acero See more » Filming Locations: $24,850,000 (USA) (24 December 2010) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia Rooster refers to LaBoeuf as a "brush popper" and later as a "waddie." Those are American West terms for a cowboy.

See more » Goofs When Mattie cuts the hanged man down from the tree and Rooster kicks him over so that he is lying flat on his back, his legs are crossed and his coat is half open. As Rooster stands over the dead man, Rooster's shadow falls behind him, away from the dead man. After the next scene, where the Indian on horseback approaches, no one has touched the dead man, and Rooster is standing in the same place. But now the dead man's legs aren't crossed anymore, his coat is fully open, and Rooster's shadow falls in front of him, across the dead man's legs. See more » Quotes [first lines] 40-Year-Old Mattie : People do not give it credence that a young girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood. But it did happen. I was just 14 years of age when a coward by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down and robbed him of his life and his horse and two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

Chaney was a hired man and Papa had taken him up to Fort Smith to help lead back a string of Mustang ponies he'd bought. In town, Chaney had ... See more » Crazy Credits Buster Coen, Ethan Coen's son, is listed in the end credits as "Mr. Damon's abs double". In reality, he was an on-set assistant to the script supervisor. See more » Connections True Grit (1969) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A drunken, hard-nosed U.S. Marshal and a Texas Ranger help a stubborn teenager track down her father's murderer in Indian territory.

Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 40 titles created 31 Mar 2011 a list of 28 titles created 15 Oct 2011 a list of 37 titles created 03 May 2013 a list of 43 titles created 11 months ago a list of 38 titles created 6 months ago Search for " True Grit " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 1 Oscar. Another 5 wins & 7 nominations. See more awards » Videos Marshal Rooster Cogburn unwillingly teams up with Eula Goodnight to track down the killers of her father. Director: Stuart Millar A senator, who became famous for killing a notorious outlaw, returns for the funeral of an old friend and tells the truth about his deed. Director: John Ford Ranch owner Katie Elder's four sons determine to avenge the murder of their father and the swindling of their mother.

Director: Henry Hathaway A dying gunfighter spends his last days looking for a way to die with a minimum of pain and a maximum of dignity. Director: Don Siegel A Civil War veteran embarks on a journey to rescue his two nieces from an Indian tribe. Director: John Ford 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X Cole Thornton, a gunfighter for hire, joins forces with an old friend, Sheriff J.P. Hara. Together with an old Indian fighter and a gambler, they help a rancher and his family fight a rival rancher that is trying to steal their water. Director: Howard Hawks A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a cripple, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy. Director: Howard Hawks A tough U.S. Marshal helps a stubborn teenager track down her father's murderer.

Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Stars: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld After the Civil War, Cord McNally searches for the traitor whose perfidy caused the defeat of McNally's unit and the loss of a close friend. Director: Howard Hawks In 1909, when John Fain's gang kidnaps Big Jake McCandles' grandson and hold him for ransom, Big Jake sets out to rescue the boy. Directors: George Sherman, John Wayne Stars: John Wayne, Richard Boone, Maureen O'Hara When his cattle drivers abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his drivers in order to get his herd to market in time to ... See full summary » Director: Mark Rydell Wealthy rancher G.W. McLintock uses his power and influence in the territory to keep the peace between farmers, ranchers, land-grabbers, Indians and corrupt government officials. Director: Andrew V. McLaglen Edit Storyline The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy, Mattie Ross, (Kim Darby), on a mission of "justice", which involves avenging her father's death.

She recruits a tough old marshal, "Rooster" Cogburn (John Wayne), because he has "grit", and a reputation of getting the job done. The two are joined by a Texas Ranger, La Boeuf, (Glen Campbell), who is looking for the same man (Jeff Corey) for a separate murder in Texas. Their odyssey takes them from Fort Smith, Arkansas, deep into the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) to find their man. Written by John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net> [edited] A Brand New Brand Of American Frontier Story See more » Genres: 21 June 1969 (Japan) See more » Also Known As: Temple de acero See more » Filming Locations: Did You Know? Trivia Jim Burk doubled for John Wayne in the final jumping fence stunt at the end. See more » Goofs Rooster mentions that he lived for some years in Cairo, Illinois, but he mispronounces the name of the town. The local pronunciation is KAY-row. See more » Quotes Frank Ross : Little Frank... You take care of your mama. Little Frank: I will.

(Tunbridge Wells, England) – See all my reviews "True Grit" deals with one of the classic Western themes, indeed one of the classic themes in all literature- revenge. A teenage girl, Mattie Ross, is looking for someone who will help her track down Tom Chaney, the man who murdered her father. The man Mattie chooses is Rooster Cogburn, a US Marshal. Cogburn is elderly, fat, one-eyed and a heavy drinker, but Mattie chooses him because she has heard that he has "true grit". The two of them set out into the Indian Territory in search of Chaney, accompanied by La Boeuf (shouldn't that be Le Boeuf?), a Texas ranger who wants to arrest him in connection with another murder. This is perhaps best remembered today as the film for which John Wayne won his only Oscar. Halliwell's Film Guide rather ungraciously refers to it as a "sentimental Oscar, for daring to look old and fat", but there is more to Wayne's performance than that.

The Academy, in fact, had tended to overlook Wayne, just as they overlooked the Western genre which provided him with most of his roles; well over a hundred films had only brought him two previous nominations. Cogburn, however, was one of his best roles. On the surface a hard-bitten, irascible old man, he has hidden depths to his character- not only the courage and determination implied by the phrase "true grit", but also a sense of humour and a capacity for tenderness. Cogburn is a lonely man, divorced from his wife and alienated from his only son, and his only friends are a Chinese storekeeper (a rare acknowledgement from Hollywood that not every inhabitant of the West was either white or an Indian) and his cat. A close relationship, however, grows up between him and the orphaned Mattie, for whom he becomes a substitute father. In turn, she becomes the daughter he never had- or perhaps even a substitute son. Mattie is a complex character. There is much about her that is androgynous- her tomboy looks, her short hair, even her name, which can be short for Matthew as well as Matilda or Martha.

She is brave and determined (there is a suggestion that the phrase "true grit" applies to her as well), but can also be a pain in the neck, especially to Cogburn. She is at times wise in the ways of the world and at others strangely innocent. She is part avenging angel, part bookish intellectual (shown by her rather formal language) and part vulnerable child. It is a role that called for an outstanding performance and got one from Kim Darby who was able to bring out all the various facets of Mattie's character. (This is the only film of hers that I have seen, but it seems strange on the strength of this that her subsequent cinema career has been so patchy). Unfortunately, Glenn Campbell, a singer with little previous acting experience, made a weak La Boeuf. It is probably as well that John Wayne did not get his way when he wanted Karen Carpenter, a singer with absolutely no previous acting experience, to play the role of Mattie instead of Darby. Great actors do not always make great casting directors.

"True Grit" does not perhaps have the depth of meaning of some of the truly great Westerns, such as "High Noon", "Unforgiven" or Wayne's last film, "The Shootist", but it is a very good one. It is a fast-moving and exciting adventure, notable for some beautiful photography of mountainous landscapes (although it is ostensibly set in relatively flat Oklahoma, it was actually filmed in Colorado and California), for one of the great iconic moments of the Western (the scene where Cogburn gallops alone into battle, guns blazing, against four opponents) and for two excellent performances in the two main roles. 7/10 48 of 70 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes TRUE GRIT - Uncut Uncut 0shares 0shares The Coens – plus Jeff Bridges – take on John Wayne’s legacy. The result is a brilliant Western...

Product Overview Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld The new Coen brothers film is a remake of the popular 1969 Western that starred John Wayne as cantankerous, one- eyed US Marshal Rooster Cogburn, a role played here by Jeff Bridges. Wayne won his only Best Actor Oscar for his rowdy turn as Cogburn, playing the part broadly, cheerfully sending himself up. But this is very much Bridges’ carefully nuanced take on Rooster Cogburn, and he brings his own piss, vinegar and grumpy bluster to the part. We hear plenty about Reuben Cogburn before we finally meet him. According to the sheriff at Fort Smith, Arkansas, Cogburn is “a pitiless man, double tough, fear don’t enter into his thinking”. But still, he “loves to pull a cork”. Cogburn is being sought out by Mattie Ross, a 14 year-old girl who’s after retribution for her father’s murder – “robbed of life, a horse and two California gold pieces he carried in his pocket”. Mattie eventually finds Cogburn on the toilet. It’s hardly an auspicious introduction.

Craggy and irascible, marinated in whisky, he sleeps in a rope bed in a room behind a Chinese grocery. “A love of decency does not abide in you,” were, we learn, the parting words of his second wife. As a US Marshal, he claims to have killed “12, 15, stopping men in flight or defending myself et cetera”, but the count is far higher. Jeff Bridges looks fantastic, incidentally. His Cogburn is a solid, meaty man, like an elderly grizzly bear, with his one eye blazing away from behind an impressively shaggy grey beard. Unlike Wayne’s burlesque take on Cogburn, there’s an undercurrent of darkness in Bridges’ performance; a cumulative sense of what he’s done and what he’s seen having taken its toll. Bridges has previously done much excellent work in Westerns – Bad Company, Rancho Deluxe and Heaven’s Gate among them. But the most pertinent here might well be Walter Hill’s tremendous Wild Bill, where he played James Butler Hickok with the kind of gruff intransigency he also displays as Marshal Cogburn.

Mattie hires Cogburn to pursue her father’s killer, farm hand Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), who’s fled into Indian country, where the law at Fort Smith has no jurisdiction. “It will not be a daisy-picking expedition,” Mattie is told. So she also hires a Texas Ranger, LeBoeuf (Matt Damon, mercifully obliterating the memory of Glen Campbell’s wooden performance in the original), who’s been chasing Chaney himself for several months. LeBoeuf is pompous, condescending: “I have lapped filthy water from a hoof print, and been glad for it.” The Coens are often drawn to such mismatched couplings – the Dude and Walter in The Big Lebowski, Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare’s hitmen in Fargo, the triple bill of stupids in O, Brother, Where Art Thou?. And typically, they enjoy the friction between Cogburn and LeBoeuf as they head deep into the Choctaw Nation with Mattie in tow.

It’s true, too, that the Coens have always made splendid use of language in their films – the regional dialects in Fargo spring to mind, or the rich Southern idioms to be found in O Brother… Here they roll around in Portis’ courtly, old-fashioned vernacular, particularly relishing the fractious back-and-forth between Cogburn and LeBoeuf. “I am a foolish old man,” howls Cogburn, “who has been dragged into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop.” The trek into Indian country moves into wild stretches of woodland and open plains experiencing the first dustings of winter snow – all beautifully shot by the Coens’ regular cinematographer Roger Deakins in earthy, rustic tones. There’s an unsettling encounter with a man dressed in a bear skin who practises dentistry for the Indians, and a fatal one with two outlaws holed up in a shack, before they finally catch up with Chaney.

He has taken up with ‘Lucky’ Ned Pepper (played with admirable menace by Barry Pepper, channelling Robert Duvall in the 1967 original) and his gang – “a congress of louts” with impressively bad teeth. Inevitably, this is where we finally learn who really has true grit. In many ways, True Grit might appear to be an unusually straight-faced genre exercise for the Coens. If their Oscar winner No Country For Old Men felt like a contemporary Western, then True Grit seems very much the real deal, with the high country locations redolent of, say, Anthony Mann’s films. Conspicuously, there is none of the brothers’ usual up-ending of their chosen genre – none of the sly spin they brought to, say, film noir in Miller’s Crossing or vintage screwball comedies in The Hudsucker Proxy. The film has the Coens’ wintry humour, sure – but that was always a major attribute of Portis’ novel. If anything, True Grit feels very much part of the Coens ongoing exploration of times and places in American history.

And, as with Marge Gunderson in Fargo, the Coens locate at the heart of True Grit a feisty, morally upstanding female character. Hailee Steinfeld is tremendous as the tenacious Mattie – “You give very little sugar with your pronouncements,” LeBoeuf admonishes her rather sourly. “I admire your salt,” she is told approvingly elsewhere, and you certainly have to give props to a character who spends one night early on in the film sleeping in an undertaker’s office surrounded by corpses: “I felt like Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones,” she admits unwaveringly. Matt Damon is equally fine here on his first outing for the Coens. “Never doubt the Texas Ranger, ever stalwart,” he crows. But the peacock preening aside, Damon gradually, unshowily reveals LeBoeuf to be a staunch ally for Mattie and Cogburn. Of course, you may conclude that True Grit is really about Jeff Bridges, giving another peerless performance for the Coens – his first since The Big Lebowski.

It’s true enough that Bridges is currently enjoying a long-deserved purple patch – his Oscar for Crazy Heart last year, while last month, incredibly, he toplined a major studio blockbuster, Tron: Legacy. Without sounding churlish, one invariably wishes these successes had come instead for many of the frankly better films he’s made in the past 40 years. But certainly, with True Grit he’s done great work in a great film. When we see Cogburn in full flight – riding against four armed men – this is rousing stuff. You’d like to think the Duke himself would be applauding the Dude from afar. MICHAEL BONNER Reuben J. Cogburn | True Grit Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn is played by John Wayne in the 1969 film adaption of True Grit and its sequel Rooster Cogburn , by Warren Oates in the made for TV movie True Grit: A Further Adventure and by Jeff Bridges in the the 2010 version of True Grit . Cogburn is a bounty hunter and US Marshal, hired by Mattie Ross to hunt down her father's killer Tom Chaney.

Character Biography Edit Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn, said to have true grit, was a US Marshall who was hired by Mattie Ross to find her father's killer, Tom Chaney. He has an ex-wife and son. In the remake, his claim of men killed as a US Marshall is 12-15, possibly 23, when testifying in court. In the film he overcomes drunkeness and stubborn pride to bond with Mattie Ross, and eventually destroy most of Lucky Ned Pepper's gang, helping Mattie avenege her farther. Rooster keeps an intenese rivalry with the Texas Ranger La Boeuf . Edit He served with the Confederacy in the American Civil War,1861-1865. He apparently rode with William Quantrill and "Bloody" Bill Anderson in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas, presumably. Rooster is working with Cole Younger and Frank James's Wild West Show when on August 12th, 1903 he passes away, of some unknown ailment. In the remake his tombstone reveals his birthday as July 15th, 1825.

Rooster favors his Colt Navy "Sixes". He is seen using a Single Action Army revolver, and a Winchester Repeater. Relationships Ex-wife Nola, who left Cogburn before the events of True Grit, to re-marry he ex-husband, a hardware salesman. "I said, 'Good-bye, Nola! Hope that little nail-sellin' bastard keeps you happy this time'!" True Grit | Reviews | Screen True Grit 3 December, 2010 | By John Hazelton Dirs/scr: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. US. 2010. 110mins Not surprisingly, Joel and Ethan Coen’s True Grit is leaner, meaner and funnier than the 1969 John Wayne Western that first put grizzled US Marshal Rooster Cogburn on screen. And even if the Coens’ version lacks the edgy originality of the brothers’ best work, the stylistic update of this familiar tale - together with tasty performances from Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld - could still result in awards season recognition and healthy box office for the Scott Rudin-produced Paramount release.

The Coens create a patina of authenticity by restoring some of the novel’s Biblical references and by having the characters speak in a stiff, archaic style. Westerns, of course, have been a hard sell lately, but with the Coen brand attached True Grit should make a strong start when it opens in North America on December 22. Its performance after that will probably depend on how many nominations and prizes the film and its stars garner in the last couple of months of awards season. Internationally, the Coens have always been a particularly strong draw - their last three releases all earned considerably more overseas than in North America - so the film will almost certainly get a significant financial boost when it starts its international roll out in the New Year. The Coens’ screenplay is based not on the Henry Hathaway-directed Wayne film but on the original True Grit novel by cult Western author Charles Portis. Set in the Southern US of the late 1800’s, the story begins with feisty 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) claiming the body of her murdered father.

Mattie hires boozy, one-eyed Federal marshal Reuben ‘Rooster’ Cogburn (Bridges) to take her into Indian Territory in pursuit of her father’s killer Tom Chaney (played by Josh Brolin). And Cogburn, looking for a share of the reward on the killer’s head, agrees to join forces with cocky young Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Damon), who has been chasing Chaney for another crime. As the unlikely threesome heads off into wild country to hunt for the dim-witted Chaney and his grungy cohorts the story unfolds much as it did in the Hathaway film. What the Coens do differently is give the action a wider variety of moods: at times there’s a chilly sense of the fragility of frontier life, while at other times the tone is quite broadly comical. The Coens create a patina of authenticity by restoring some of the novel’s Biblical references and by having the characters speak in a stiff, archaic style. They also make their version less of a one-man show than the Wayne film by paying more attention to Mattie and her inkling of romantic interest in La Boeuf.

However it may not be the Coens - who won multiple Oscars two years ago with No Country For Old Men - as much as the film’s other talents who will give True Grit its best chances of award recognition. Bridges (who won last year’s lead actor Oscar for Crazy Heart) is often funny and sometimes quite touching in the role that won Wayne his only Academy Award. Damon also finds some shading in his role but it is Steinfeld, best known up to now for TV appearances and shorts, who impresses most with her assured performance as Mattie. Also likely to be in the awards running is cinematographer Roger Deakins, making his eleventh film with the Coens. Deakins, an eight-time Oscar nominee who has yet to take home a statuette, contributes greatly to the film’s atmosphere with some beautiful shots of the New Mexico wilderness. Production companies: Paramount Pictures, Scott Rudin Productions, Skydance Productions Worldwide distribution: Paramount Pictures Find more jobs Advertise with us Screen International provides a range of effective advertising opportunities both in print and online. Our commercial team will work with you to build the most effective package for your marketing requirement. Subscribe to Screen Screen International is the essential resource for the international film industry.

A subscription now offers much greater value with full access to ScreenDaily.com, ScreenBase and Screen International magazine. Rely on us for expert news analysis, insight and data. Screen International Screen International is the leading film industry resource covering the international film markets. We provide a whole-industry perspective from some of the most knowledgeable writers and data analysts in the business. Across print and online mediums, Screen International delivers analysis, opinion and commentary on the issues, people and products shaping the worldwide film industry. Visit other MBI sites True Grit – review | Film | The Guardian True Grit – review 4 / 5 stars Jeff Bridges takes over John Wayne's eyepatch as the Coens go west for an impressive and Oscar-tipped remake Thursday 10 February 2011 09.59 EST First published on Thursday 10 February 2011 09.59 EST Share on Messenger Close More grit – more truth? The Coen Brothers' latest film is presented not as a remake of the 1969 Henry Hathaway picture starring John Wayne, but a new adaptation of the Charles Portis novel.

It's avowedly truer to the darker and more nuanced nature of that original story: this is a western in the contemporary style, with a 21st-century sense of artistry and Americana – and maybe generally closer in feel to, say, Altman's McCabe & Mrs Miller than the first True Grit . Although that appeared towards the end of the western's Hollywood pre-eminence, it still came out at a time when the genre ruled television and cowboy stories seemed bathed in California sunshine wherever they were set. Tellingly, this movie often takes place in the bitter cold: one of its best moments comes when two characters are just shown waiting, on their horses, as the freezing snow flecks around them. Jeff Bridges now takes the Wayne role of Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn, a fat, boozy, old guy with an eyepatch in late 19th-century Arkansas, who after a rackety career of gunslinging and soldiering is now employed as a US marshal, pursuing miscreants and fugitives, and none too squeamish about what nobody called their civil rights.

Rooster's life is turned upside down when a formidably intelligent and driven 14-year-old girl enters the scene; Mattie Ross, played here by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, hires Rooster to catch Tom Chaney, the man who killed her father, and who has now fled to the lawless wilderness of Oklahoma's Indian Territory. The situation is complicated by a second lawman being on Chaney's trail: LaBoeuf, a smug and faintly dandy-ish Texan played by Matt Damon, who wants to bring Chaney in on a different charge. This chaotic trio is riven with all sort of tensions – Rooster's exasperated, yet sentimental concern for Mattie, their mutual resentment of LaBoeuf's spur-wearing Texan machismo; Rooster and LaBoeuf bickering about respective war records and Mattie's seething suspicion that these males are going to cheat her of her one ambition – to see Chaney hang for killing her dad.

This is definitely a darker, more austere picture: where Wayne played Rooster with more warmth, and delivered almost every line as if he was calling across the room to someone, Bridges takes a conscious decision to play the role in the opposite direction. He speaks in low, guttural growl, his jaws sometimes almost wired shut and mouth hardly moving, like a ventriloquist. He's still a drinker, but less lovable and more detached: there's even a black comic moment of cruelty where Rooster brutally boots a Native American child off a front porch. It's a more violent film, too, with one bad guy getting shot in the face at point-blank range and another getting his fingers chopped off, all in front of Mattie – who is unfazed, unsentimental, and unwilling to accept Rooster in the surrogate-dad role that we, the audience, may by now be urging on her. There are moments when this True Grit has the disturbing quality of the Coens' version of Cormac McCarthy's western thriller No Country for Old Men: a decaying corpse is found hanging high in a remote forest.

Seen closeup and directly from below, foreshortened and shrunk, it looks even scarier. As Rooster and young Mattie take grimly to the road together, surreally encountering what appears to be a bear riding a house, there are more hints of McCarthy. Perhaps the only slightly uncertain note is Josh Brolin's performance as cringing Chaney. Such a potent actor would probably be better off portraying the younger Cogburn in some prequel; playing a weaker man does not suit him. The one detail in the first film which was darker than this new one, incidentally, was Hathaway's shot of children callously playing on swings in a playground right by where men are being hanged: a very Coenish touch. So why precisely did the Coens want to make this film? It's a difficult question; aside from the ending – which will blindside you with its poignancy and force – it really is pretty similar to the first movie in plot terms, and a sceptic might feel the Wayne classic has been fed into a special machine which turns old movies into hip indie-arthouse product, like those devices for converting vinyl into downloadable MP3 files.

This is certainly utterly unlike the Coens' freewheeling remake of The Ladykillers and, I would guess, their proposed new version of the 60s caper Gambit. So where's the advantage of another True Grit? The answer, I think, lies in the revitalised figure of LaBoeuf, excellently played by Matt Damon . At first glance, this True Grit does not have the warmth of John Wayne's unselfconscious, roistering turn. But this is partly because the Coens have transferred some of this warmth to the third figure in the film. In 1969, it was all about Mattie and Rooster's comic father-daughter relationship and LaBoeuf was a minor figure. Now it is an emotional triangle, and Damon gives a really outstanding performance as the prickly Texan Ranger, unsure whether to dislike Mattie or fall in love with her, and whose relationship with Mattie finally becomes poignant and tender, a gallant brotherly concern. Damon comes close, very close, to upstaging Bridges.

This True Grit is a very impressive piece of work, beautifully photographed by Roger Deakins, and if you had never seen the original, it might be getting even higher praise. Its final moments have an exquisite sadness and gentleness that the Coen brothers have never quite achieved before. Matt Damon up for True Grit | GamesRadar+ Matt Damon up for True Grit The Coens also want Josh Brolin Shares The Coen brothers are talking to Matt Damon and Josh Brolin to join the cast of their planned new version of True Grit. Jeff Bridges is already aboard for the lead as US Marshal Rooster Cogburn (originally played by John Wayne) and Brolin would continue the run of the brothers using actors they've worked with before - since he starred in No Country For Old Men. If he signs, Brolin will play the murderous thug who kickstarts the murder that sends Cogburn after him into dangerous Native American territory. Damon, on the other hand, would be a Coen newcomer, but is negotiating for the part of the lawman who joins Cogburn on his mission. Sounds like they'd both be solid choices, but what say you?

True Grit review | GamesRadar+ True Grit review Move over Duke – here comes The Dude… Shares Comments As soon as it was known the Coen brothers were planning a new film of True Grit , the internet grumbling started in force. Why remake a great film, demanded the whingers? Well, maybe distance adds charm, but the 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel, directed by reliable veteran Henry Hathaway, really isn’t that great. It’s mostly remembered for an overweight John Wayne spoofing his own image, getting drunk and falling off his horse. (True, the role won him his only Oscar, but that was essentially the John Wayne Award For Being John Wayne.) At 128 minutes Hathaway’s film is overlong and rambling. The ending slides into a sentimentality that’s absent from Portis’ novel. As Texas ranger Le Boeuf, second-billed crooner Glen Campbell is plain inadequate – worse, if you can credit it, than Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo. Not a disastrous film, all things considered, but one that’s surely ripe for a remake. And so, 40 years on, here come Joel and Ethan with their take on the story.

It’s their first true western – OK, there were western elements in No Country For Old Men, but this is the real McCoy. Set in the late 1870s, it’s their first period movie set pre-20th Century (unless you count the dybbuk prologue to A Serious Man). And it’s their return to remake territory, which they explored with regrettable results in 2004’s The Ladykillers . So with all that riding on it, how do the brothers do? Pretty damn well. For a start, this is way better than Hathaway’s movie. Not that they’ve messed around with the story; for all their supposed irreverence, the Coens treat their literary sources with respect. As before, this is the tale of Mattie Ross, an exceptionally mature and level-headed 14-year-old from Arkansas, who sets out to track down her father’s killer with the help of a boozy, one-eyed US Marshal named ‘Rooster’ Cogburn, with occasional interference from Texas ranger, La Boeuf. The ranger, this time round, is played by Matt Damon, a huge improvement on Campbell – well, who wouldn’t be?

But all credit to Damon, who plays down the Texan’s vanity and braggadocio, leaving just enough of it in evidence to be funny without being off-putting. Next: True Grit review conclusion [page-break] As Mattie, newcomer Hailee Steinfeld doesn’t eclipse memories of Kim Darby, who was the best thing about the earlier movie, but she’s equally assured in the role, facing down all comers with a clear-eyed self-possession that recalls Frances McDormand’s police chief Marge Gunderson in Fargo. (Also, at 13 she’s much closer to the age she’s playing – Darby was 21.) In the plum role of Rooster Cogburn, Jeff Bridges can’t totally resist the temptation to ham it up a bit (though a lot less than Wayne did). But given such a richly larger-than-life character, who could blame him? Bridges lends the Marshal a deep, throaty, mellowed-in-whiskey voice that gives full weight to his hard-bitten pronouncements.

When Mattie protests his decision not to bury a couple of recently deceased baddies, since it’s winter and the ground’s too hard, Cogburn observes, “Them men wanted a decent burial, they should have got themselves killed in summer.” It’s this richness of language, often expressed with a near-biblical formality which evidently attracted the Coens to this. Much of it’s taken straight from Portis’ novel. A fatally wounded rustler, asked if he wants to send a dying message to his brother, responds: “It don’t matter about that. I will meet him later walking the streets of Glory,” and when Rooster offers Mattie a slug of whiskey she retorts witheringly, “I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.” Carter Burwell’s score abets this mood, weaving an evocative tapestry of traditional gospel tunes. Given their fidelity to the original the brothers get less chance to exercise their trademark sardonic humour, though they do sneak in the occasional pungent jibe. Early in the action there’s a triple hanging: two of the men are given time to make final speeches to the crowd, one penitent, the other defiant.

The third has the hood slipped over his head before he can get out half a dozen words. But then, he’s just an Injun…. The start and finish point up the difference between the two versions. Rather than laboriously showing (as Hathaway does) Mattie’s father leaving home, heading for local trading centre Fort Smith and being gunned down by his drunken ranch-hand, the Coens cut to the chase, covering these events in a brief voice-over from Mattie as she embarks on her quest for justice. And where Hathaway opted for a feel-good ending, with Mattie healed in body and soul, Wayne (or his stunt double) showjumping a four-bar fence with a jovial “Come and see a fat old man sometime,” the Coens follow Portis with their elegiac, 25-years-on coda, a poignant meditation on time and loss. This isn’t so much a remake as a masterly re-creation.

More Info TV Reviews 1 Charles Portis: the man who wrote True Grit Charles Portis: the man who wrote True Grit Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff Bridges in the 2011 re-make of True Grit Credit: Rex Features 11 May 2016 • 8:29am The cult novelist Charles McColl Portis, who wrote True Grit, Gringos and the comedy classic The Dog of the South, was born in El Dorado, Arkansas, on December 28, 1933. This article was first published in 2011. Rooster Cogburn, the charismatic rogue played by Jeff Bridges in the Coen Brothers entertaining 2011 film True Grit, is fearsome enough – a one-eyed, whiskey-guzzling, trigger-happy US marshal. But his creator, Charles Portis, the reclusive and somewhat forgotten American novelist who wrote the 1968 book on which the film is based, wasn’t someone to mess with either.

“A reporter from The Times wanted to arm-wrestle, and as I recall, he kept challenging me,” Portis once revealed in a rare interview with Roy Reed for the Little Rock Gazette. “So we went at it and there was a pop. His arm broke. Very strange. He went into a kind of swoon.” Known only as “Buddy” to his friends, Portis was born in El Dorado, Arkansas in 1933, to Samuel Palmer Portis, a seventh son, and Alice, the daughter of a Methodist minister and one of 11 children. He had a bucolic upbringing across the state in Mount Holly, a dream of a place where “flying squirrels glided across [the] front yard” and watermelons were left floating in the creeks to cool. Mount Holly had two schools – one for blacks, one for whites – and a backdrop of interesting characters included moonshiners and bootleggers. Many of his early days were spent swimming outdoors with friends and poring over the adventures of “forgotten comic book heroes like Plastic Man and The Sand Man”.

Films were another favourite escape, especially at the “shabby and disreputable Star cinema” in El Dorado, where he would watch westerns. A droll, deadpan humour, evident throughout Portis’s novels, was a family trait. “The Portises were talkers rather than readers or writers,” he said. “[There was] a lot of cigar smoke and laughing when my father and his brothers got together. Long anecdotes.” A valuable first edition of True Grit Credit: Rex Features He signed up to the Marines and fought in the Korean War. On his return to the United States, he took a major in journalism at the University of Arkansas and became a reporter in 1958. He was put on the night police beat, covering State Fair stories and ice storms and waiting for the occasional murder. “I didn’t care for beat reporting, covering the same thing day after day – short attention span,” he admitted. It was the era of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Portis had to cover the civil rights turmoil, noting interestingly that “some of it was the Civil War being replayed as farce”.

After three years in Little Rock, Portis moved on to the Herald-Tribune, working for three years in New York before his spell in London. John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn Credit: Rex Features Based near the Savoy Hotel, he combined reporting with his duties as bureau chief. He was amused rather than annoyed by the constant clicks of the telephones that indicated British intelligence were tapping his calls. He also dealt with Downing Street, as he remembered: “The Prime Minister was Sir Alec Douglas-Home. He gave us – a handful of American correspondents – one or two off-the-record interviews and spoke of Lyndon Johnson as, 'your, uh, rather racy president’, referring, I suppose, to Johnson’s barnyard humour.” He quickly became disillusioned with the whole business of “management comedies”. As he says: “I wanted to try my hand at fiction, so I gave notice and went home to America.” That was in November 1964. Four years later, he had published True Grit to widespread acclaim. Roald Dahl – who rarely reviewed books – wrote in praise for the American first edition dust jacket: “True Grit is the best novel to come my way for a very long time.

I was going to say it was the best novel to come my way since…Then I stopped. Since what? What book has given me greater pleasure in the last five years? Or in the last 20? I do not know. I expect some have, but I cannot recall them right now. Marvellous it is. He hasn’t put a foot wrong anywhere. What a writer!” The book is written as a world-weary spinster’s account of the events of 1873, when, as a spiky 14 year-old, she avenged her father’s murder. Portis’s language is blunt but poetic. The murderer, Tom Chaney, was “a short man with cruel features”. Rooster Cogburn, the flawed hero, “a pitiless man who loves to pull a cork”. Barbra Streisand presented John Wayne with his Oscar for Best Actor for True Grit Credit: AP Passing characters are dissected: one is “a long-backed man with a doorknob head and a mouth full of prominent teeth”, another is a gossip who “could no more keep her mouth closed than can a yellow catfish”.

The action rattles along and events are seen in the hard, unsentimental eye that Cormac McCarthy would assume a few decades later. The first film adaptation, starring John Wayne, was made in 1969 and when Portis visited the set he marvelled at the way Wayne and Robert Duvall blew up and stormed off – only to return as though nothing had happened. The original film, though, lacks the book’s charm and power – something the Coen brothers captured far more successfully, a success reflected in the 10 Oscar nominations the film received. Jeff Bridges, the new Rooster Cogburn, says: “The Coens mentioned the idea of doing a western to me years ago, and I thought that sounded interesting, and then when I got the script and it was True Grit I was surprised. Then I read the book and it made perfect sense. It’s very Coen-esque.”

Question: Who played the part of US marshal Rooster Cogburn in the 2011 film "True Grit"?
Answer: Jeff Bridges